Powered by a combination of strong research content a top-quality platform for both high-touch and low-touch trading, RBC Capital Markets ranks as the top Canadian equities broker, Stamford, Conn.-based Greenwich Associates announced on Thursday.
RBC leads the list of 2018 Greenwich share leadiers in Canadian equities trading and research/advisory servies, followed by BMO Capital Markets. Scotia Capital ranks third, with CIBC World Markets and TD Securities rounding out the top five.
The results are based on a survey of Canadian equity portfolio managers and traders at Canadian and U.S. buy-side firms between December 2017 and February 2018.
“The Big Five Canadian brokers have consolidated both their earned research/advisory vote and their realized trading commission share in 2018, with RBC leading the pack by virtue of superior content combined with high-touch and low-touch trading offerings,” says Jay Bennett, managing director at Greenwich, in a statement.
The report estimates that the total pool of institutional brokerage commissions declined by 4% this year to about $650 million. The overall trading commission pool continues to shrink due to an ongoing shift to lower-cost electronic trading, higher passive equity allocations, and a continued shift away from Canadian equities by Canadian pension managers, the report says. However, it notes that buy-side traders are forecasting a slight increase in commissions for the remainder of 2018.
In the growing electronic trading space, Investment Technology Group leads the market by a wide margin, Greenwich reports. It says that the top-ranked firm has twice the share of the second place firm, RBC. CIBC ranks third, with Scotia in fourth place.